I'm currently making the massaman curry, and the savory baked tofu is one of the ingredients. I whipped it up and used the size dish she calls for, but the marinade was spread really thin and burned to the dish 15 minutes in. It's supposed to go for 40 total. Any testers know if there's an ingredient missing or something? My oven temperature is pretty accurate.

(I saved the tofu! The marinade is burned black though.)

Dinner twins! Just waiting for the rice to finish.

That happened to me the first time with the baked tofu...now I make it in the toaster oven (smaller "pan"; I crowd it) and sprinkle tamari over the top when I flip the tofu. The marinade NOT on the tofu is burned--your actual tofu didn't burn, right?

I made the Savory Baked Tofu too, I used a 10 x 8 glass pan & there was no burning. It was so good!

Made the eggplant and tofu adobo last night not knowing what to expect. I'm not super keen on sour foods so the vinegar made me skeptical. I added a red pepper that was languishing in the fridge and used red wine vinegar instead of white. Didn't have a banana for garnish, but it didn't matter because it was SO GOOD. Looking forward to having the leftovers for lunch this week! I would probably not add quite so many black peppercorns next time as they were rather strong when I bit into one. Otherwise, 10 stars!!

I'd been going back and forth on whether to get this book (I have way too many cookbooks as it is), and ended up buying it. SO GLAD I DID! This collection of recipes is mouthwatering and unique. I'm especially excited to try:

I made the Mostly Mediterranean Eggplant Parmigiana tonight -- it took a while, but wasn't actually all that complicated. I loved the spices in the sauce -- next time I will probably go all out and make the Persian spice blend, but this time I just did the cinnamon, coriander and cumin option, with plain old red pepper flakes.

I have some leftover béchamel sauce, as I only made half a batch of the eggplant parm -- any suggestions on how to use it?

Later this week I hope to make the freezer preserved lemons, and then the ful medames.

I've had this cookbook since the night of Terry's demo/signing, but life has been so hectic I haven't really had a chance to give it a good once over! This thread is making me impatient for a time when I might have time to try out lots of recipes. Although is it weird that I have mixed feelings about using a signed cookbook because I don't want to schmutz it?

annak wrote:

(somewhat OT: since an Amsterdam demo was mentioned above, though, those people in the Netherlands should totally check out Tampopo on Haarlemmerdijk, and it's next door to de Natuurwinkel too!) My old 'hood and packed with half a dozen good ethnic groceries).

Aw. I just checked this out and sadly Tampopo closed in 2011. I wish I'd known about them when they were open, although I rarely get to the Haarlemmerdijk area. I sometimes drop by Meida-Ya on the Beethovenstraat when I'm in the area, though, and there are a few really large Asian groceries in the Nieuwmarkt area.

In other sad news, de Natuurwinkels are now called EkoPlaza, which doesn't sound nearly as cute.

_________________I ate the shiitake out of inappropriateness. - Hollie

Hi, everyone! I'm in my 11th week of veganism, and I am a changed woman. What an incredible journey, and a choice that sits so peacefully with my soul.

I recd my VEW book a while back, on pre-order, and have been enjoying all the posts (as I have loved scouring the other Isa/Terry threads for tips on all their other books, which I've quickly accumulated during the past 11 weeks!). Anyway...

This afternoon, dragged myself to the kitchen, mid-flu, to make whatever I could rustle up that resembled something throat-soothing, warm, comforting, and vitamin-rich, without a great deal of effort. I had nearly all the ingredients for the Red Lentil Dahl, and I found myself with a warm bowl of heaven in my hands in just about half an hour!

The lentils seemed to cook WAY faster than the book indicated (maybe the type of red lentils I had? Trader Joe's...), so I was able to mix in my onion and spices in after about 15 minutes. Did not have the fenugreek, so tossed in a sprinkle of fennel seed to the skillet while frying the other spices. No curry leaves or curry anything in my cupboard, but still this dahl was BEYOND flavorful with the fresh lime, copious amounts of minced red onion, and other spices.

SOOO good, just what the doctor ordered - and hard to beat a soup that costs <$2 for the entire pot!

The masala potato soup is great! Our jalapenos have been wimpy lately, so I haven't been seeding them, but I guess they're hot again, because that shiitake had three unseeded jalapenos in it, and it was hotttttttttt.

Holy shiitake, the massaman curry is fantastic! I made it with green beans and diced tomatoes. The only thing I'll make differently next time is that I'll only add the tofu at the end, because it did get quite soft.

creep wrote:

The masala potato soup is great! Our jalapenos have been wimpy lately, so I haven't been seeding them, but I guess they're hot again, because that shiitake had three unseeded jalapenos in it, and it was hotttttttttt.

I liked this soup as well. I didn't have any fresh chilis, so I used dried ones instead. I always tone down the spiciness, because I can't take that much heat.

Preserved lemons are in the freezer, and I'm planning to make ful medames tonight. I should probably get started on some pita or other flatbread to go with it. I'm probably too excited about this -- expectations might be too high.

I made my first recipe from the book yesterday. Mango and peanut millet salad. I brought it to a potluck and it went down well. It tasted good. It will probably end up being one of my go to recipes for lunch during the week to take to work.

I'm making naan :) I'm using whole wheat bread flour. (my roommate bought it so, there we go) and I'm making the garlic version. (because you can never go wrong with garlic). The garlic did though make the bread get a bit tacky, but there was nothing about adding a bit more flour to it, so i hope it all works out.

I made the ful medames the other night, with naan from this book as well as I didn't get started early enough to make some bread in 5 pita bread. I could only find canned fava beans, and they were crunchy! I have never had crunchy canned beans, so that was weird. I did cook them for an additionaly 30 minutes on the stove, but apparently that didn't help. I guess I'll have to try the other brand of canned beans next time, or try to scrounge up some dry ones. The preserved lemon topping is delicious, and I would highly recommend it. If you love lemon flavor, you might even up the amount of preserved lemon in the topping. I loved the salty bursts of lemon flavor, and the freezer preserved lemon recipe was pretty easy (the hardest part was finding decent organic lemons-next time I might just use conventional).

The naan was delicious. I had a hard time getting my crappy nonstick pan to the right temperature -- I start on high as written, but I kept having to turn it down as my naan were getting pretty black. Surprisingly, they didn't taste burned. I also found that they work a lot better if you roll them thinner (about 1/8 inch) and stretch them slightly as you lay them in the pan as they tend to spring back a little after being rolled. My first few were a little short and squat, but one I caught on they were thinner and more "restaurant style" (although they all tasted delicious).

Made my first recipe! The massaman curry because I had all the ingredients. Totally used storebought spice blends and i can't eat onions so i had to leave out the onions and the shallots. i left out the tomatoes too because I didn't have any. but despite all that it was great and super quick! yum!

_________________I am not a troll. I am TELLING YOU THE ******GOD'S TRUTH****** AND YOU JUST DON'T WANT THE HEAR IT DO YOU?

Making and eating this naan was one of the happiest cooking experiences I've ever had! It's so exciting to be able to make your favorite foods at home and I was blown away by how easy this was. We split the batch into half plain/half garlic. We used the pancake griddle and everything was perfect. I was kicking myself for not making a raita to go with the bread, but we had plenty of other food to sop up.

I made the chana masala, because I make every chana recipe I come across in a book. This one did not disappoint! Plus it was an excuse to bust out the pomegranate syrup and use up some freezer burning chickpeas. This recipe was pretty familiar to me, so I wanted to try something else for dinner in addition to it.

We also made the Pumpkin Coconut Curry. I subbed pumpkin for a butternut squash I had. I used fresh pandan leaves and curry leaves (at least I'm hoping they were curry leaves...I never got a straight answer at the shop). It has an interesting flavor profile that I really liked. Frying up the pandan and curry leaves gave off this awesome smell in the kitchen. Plus, now I know what pandan is. I see a lot of desserts and buns in the Asian markets labeled with that here and I've never known what it was. I love when I get to learn something new from a cookbook. I've been cooking a while and it's hard for me to discover something new, even in vegan cookbooks, but I'm realizing in looking through this book that I have a lot of new things I can try.

We served the two curries with steamed rice and the naan. And for dessert I made the coconut cream pie from VPITS. Pretty rad Saturday night, thanks to two awesome PPK cookbooks.